Anyone know anything about AlphaSmart?

[MetalMummy]

DS2 is 7 and was diagnosedd with Dyspraxia 3 years ago, he uses pencil grips and a writing slope at school but his writing hasn't improved since he was in year 1. The senco has suggested that he may benefit from using an AlphaSmart but hasn't really given me any info about them. Has anybody got any experience with these? do they help a lot and is he likely to be picked on if he has one? or am I just being a neurotic mother?

[Ingles2]

I'm afraid I haven't heard of Alphasmart, so I can't answer your question.
Just wanted to ask if your ds takes part in Fizzy classes at school?
These are fine /gross motor skills exercises for 20 mins in the morning. My ds2 is dyspraxic and these classes helped a lot.
Also, have you had an OT in school observing? Quite often you will get exercise recommendation following a visit.
Finally a bit of reassurance,.. Ds2 is now 9, yr 5, it's only this year that his writing has improved,..and it's been quite a large improvement as well, so don't worry too much just yet.

[MetalMummy]

I haven't heard of Fizzy classes. He was observed by OT in school when he was in Reception but the senco is thinking about referring him back to OT because of the lack of improvement and because he's goes up into juniors in September. He is ahead of his peers in reading and spelling but gets really frustrated because he knows what he wants to write but he just can't do it.

[Baffledandbewildered]

Alpha smart is a small hand held computer with a keyboard that the children use instead of writing. It doesn't correct spelling and you can't read everyone that has been typed in as you can on a computer its words go along in one line off the screen iyswim like the screen with messages at a football match!. My dc has one as he is dyslexic. The work is printed out each day it does help my dc get his ideas annswers down but to me honest he is not keen on it( but then he is not keen on a lot of things!) it is worth trying as it does help to get a clear idea of how much a child knows/understands if they are not good at writing/spelling ect. Good luck hope it works for ds

[Minx179]

DS used an Alphasmart Neo from yrs 5-9.

They are ideal for younger children though DS struggled at only being able to see 4/6 lines of writing at a time as he got older and more content was required.

Portable and light, no wires, easy to plug into a laptop/computer to print off material, batteries only needed replacing once a year. repair costs reasonable.

Baffled, if you have a neo you can alter the number of visible lines on the screen from 1-6. It also has a spell check facility.

www.renlearn.co.uk/writing

[EllenJane1]

My DS2 age 11 has used one at school for the past 4 years. Very robust and no distractions like a laptop, just word processing, and cheaper at approx £140. He's going to secondary in Sept and I think he'll need a laptop then. Great if the school will provide one, we had to buy our own! See recent thread on Special Needs Children about laptops. Lots of info on Alphasmarts.

[Neo2]

Declaring an interest here - but just to let you know that I am the Product Manager for 'AlphaSmart' here in the UK.

Thanks to Minx179 for helping out and pointing others to the website. Please feel free to contact us - we are always more than happy to talk with users and potential users.

Please be aware that we now offer a text to speech unit that adds on to the NEO (new name for the alphasmart) so users can hear what they have written letter by letter, word by word, or sentence by sentence. Also Co:Writer software can be used with NEO for predictive text.

JCQ, the main examination council, in the UK now approve the use of NEOs for examinations for pupils who have writing problems by the way.